Nvidia has today announced the acquisition of the UK fabless semiconductor company Icera for $367 million in cash.

Icera is a significant buy for Nvidia due to the market it operates in and caters for. The company holds over 550 patents and produces baseband processors for both 3G and 4G cellular networks. Its chips are used in datacards and USB sticks for mobile broadband access as well as being embedded directly in smartphones, tablets, and netbooks.

Why is this significant for Nvidia? Because the company is pushing hard to get its Tegra platform used in mobile devices such as tablets. With Icera under its wing the Tegra platform becomes a better value proposition as it could offer the baseband chip as part of the package. The other advantage it gives Nvidia is the opportunity to push Tegra in a form suitable for smartphones by using Icera’s expertise in the area and focusing on a complete mobile solution which is of great value to companies wanting to offer up performance smartphones.

Posting on the Nvidia Blog, Phil Carmack pointed to a “post-PC era” and Nvidia’s need to be a processor company not tied just to PCs. This has already been demonstrated by the rate of development seen for the Tegra platform which now takes on a whole new twist with Icera on board.

Carmack believes having access to Icera’s technology means Tegra will enjoy better performance while being able to provide a solution that allows devices to launch more quickly. A combined baseband and application processor solution ultimately means less for a vendor to do/test before a launch.

Nvidia has reassured the partners it currently uses for baseband solutions that it will be business as usual for the time being. We don’t expect Nvidia to take too long getting Icera’s chip integrated with Tegra though, at which point it won’t need to source baseband chips from a third-party anymore.